


the only way to get rid of temptation is to yield to it

by escherzo



Category: Rusty Quill Gaming (Podcast)
Genre: Between S3-S4, M/M, Mutual Masturbation, Reading, Voyeurism
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-08
Updated: 2020-11-08
Packaged: 2021-03-09 05:07:01
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,758
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27449107
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/escherzo/pseuds/escherzo
Summary: “What Ineed,” Wilde says, closing his eyes and somehow looking wearier in the moment than he already is, “is a glass of wine and several pretty naked men, but we no longer live in a world where those can be easily provided.” He rubs absently at the scar on his face. Zolf chooses very pointedly not to comment on where it came from.“Right,” Zolf says, standing up. “Can't do pretty or several, so I'll have to do.” He goes around to the back of the bar and plucks one of the few remaining bottles of wine from the rack. “Come on then.”(Or: in which Wilde reads a very particular sort of book to Zolf)
Relationships: Zolf Smith/Oscar Wilde
Comments: 27
Kudos: 92





	the only way to get rid of temptation is to yield to it

**Author's Note:**

> something sure happened here. unbetaed, somehow written in addition to nano today, title is an oscar wilde quote because I can resist everything but a bad fic title. zolf is one of my very favorite ace subtypes here: very into fiction, but not really into being touched by other people. they find a fun thing to do with that. you know harrison campbell's got some smutty bits. 
> 
> a loving shoutout to when in rome for being constant inspiration for rqg matters ♥

“Wilde.”

Wilde looks up, startled. He's surrounded by a mass of papers and half-cracked books, ink smudges on his fingers and vibrant dark circles under his eyes. The scar across his face seems more vivid than usual, like the wound is half-opened again, and he gives Zolf a nod before turning back to his books with a weary sigh, his shoulders slumping. He's so tense. The lines of his shoulders rigid and knotted, and Zolf's own muscles twinge in sympathy to look at them. 

“Wilde,” Zolf says again, sharper this time. “If you keep this up you're going to collapse again.”

“I'm sure I don't know what you mean,” Wilde says, trying for self-assured and missing it by a few miles. He runs a hand through his hair. “We have work to do.”

“Yes, we do, and you're not going to be any good for that if you're _passed out on a table_.”

They're alone in the inn and the evening has grown late; the last of the sun is slipping away to a deep, inky blue, and the faint glow of the lights casts everything into dim shadows around them. Zolf can feel the ache in his own bones; he's been out all day, talking, trying to coordinate people into some semblance of order and find news from the outside, and he's not nearly as exhausted as Wilde, but he's not far off. Wilde reaches for a pen and scatters a handful of papers with his elbow, fluttering to the floor as he swears and tries to grab for them, to put everything back into some semblance of order. 

“So what would you suggest, then?” Wilde asks crisply, leveling him with a stare. 

“What do you need right now? Not what you _should_ be doing. What do you need.” 

“What I _need_ ,” Wilde says, closing his eyes and somehow looking wearier in the moment than he already is, “is a glass of wine and several pretty naked men, but we no longer live in a world where those can be easily provided.” He rubs absently at the scar on his face. Zolf chooses very pointedly not to comment on where it came from. 

“Right,” Zolf says, standing up. “Can't do pretty or several, so I'll have to do.” He goes around to the back of the bar and plucks one of the few remaining bottles of wine from the rack. “Come on then.”

Wilde blinks. “You're serious.”

“Do I look like I'm joking?” Zolf asks, staring him down. 

Wilde hesitates for a long moment. “... No you do not,” he says finally, and pushes back the chair to stand up. “Lead the way.”

*

Zolf's room is the first one on the left, half a step from the creaking stairs. Closest to the exit if something goes wrong, with Wilde's just opposite him for the same reason. The'yve been living under constant threat for so long he's barely even registered the way he checks for exits in a new place, the way his bed is turned to face the door so he has full view of anyone coming into his room. The windows, long since barred over with nailed planks of wood, ensuring no one can climb through in the night. 

On some nights, he looks at it and thinks, _but that means Sasha won't get in_ for a moment until he remembers, and then he has to go try to lose himself in the work of keeping what's left of the world together for a while. He shakes his head. Not thoughts to be having tonight. Tonight he needs to sort Wilde out. 

The hallway is dim, and the room dimmer, one lone bulb on the bedside table, bu the bed is big and comfortable and there's an old couch shoved into the corner next to the door, ready to be moved in front of the door as a barricade if needed, but comfortable at other times. In another life, it would have been a lurid thing, a bright red velvet with tacky gilding. Now, it's faded at the edges, the bright parts dim. Zolf herds Wilde into the room with a hand at the small of his back and then pushes him down onto the couch without ceremony, and Wilde lets out a startled yelp he quickly tries to turn into a cough and a smooth smile. 

He looks up at Zolf with that smile still on, as if to say, _oh, really now?_

“You're going to stay there,” Zolf says, and Wilde raises an eyebrow.

“Do you have a plan, then?”

Zolf has half a plan. On some level, he's trying to channel Wilde. Be spontaneous, difficult, _appealing_. He doesn't think he's much good at it. “Yes,” he says, instead of any of that. 

Wilde settles back onto the couch, lazily draping his arms across the back and watching as Zolf sets the bottle of wine down beside it. He nods and tips his head back too, hair fanning out behind him, and closes his eyes. “Well?” he asks. 

The book is under Zolf's pillow. He's thankful in the moment that Wilde's eyes are closed and so he doesn't notice that. It's dogeared and worn, well-loved, and when he opens it it flips right to the page he wants. He clears his throat and holds it out, open to page two hundred and eighteen, averting his eyes from Wilde as he does. 

“You're going to stay there,” Zolf says, sitting down on the edge of the bed and starting to unlace his boots, one methodical loop after another, “and you're going to read that to me.”

“And what will you be doing?” Wilde asks, putting the book down for a moment to grab the bottle of wine and wiggle the half-loose cork free. He takes a swig, keeping his eyes on Zolf as his throat works; as he pulls away he flicks out his tongue to trace around the rim of it, and Zolf's gaze sharpens. 

“Figure it out,” Zolf says, tugging his boots off and setting them neatly beside the bed, before starting in on the straps of his armor. There's no way to make taking armor off sexy; it involves too much wiggling and cursing as it gets caught in underclothing, but Wilde's eyes have gone from him to the book beside him on the couch. Zolf watches his eyes widen as they move across the page. 

“Goodness,” Wilde says, voice going sly, and he settles back further into the couch, flicking out a hand to artfully undo a few of the buttons of his shirt, letting his coat fall further open. He's getting it now. 

“Yeah,” Zolf says, all teeth as he grins. Out of his armor, he can make a bit of a show of it again, though he's never been a performer like Wilde. Slowly, methodically unbuttons each button on his shirt, sliding it slowly down his shoulders, and he watches Wilde's eyes follow the curve of his muscles down. He strokes a hand across his own chest and wishes for a moment that he'd thought to have some of the wine, because he does _not_ feel cut out for this, but Wilde hisses in a sharp breath at the sight and he lets it spur him on further. He lets his discarded shirt fall to the side, half on and half off the bed, meeting Wilde's eyes as he reaches down to start unfastening his trousers. 

“Told you to read,” Zolf says, and lets his hands settle; his trousers are unbuttoned and hanging open, but he's not taken them off fully yet, and it's only when Wilde picks the book back up that he continues. A light of strange mirth glints in Wilde's eyes; he's figured out the game here. 

The book, _The Scoundrel's Fortune_ , has long been one of his favorite Harrison Campbell novels—not because it has the best plot, or the most compelling characters, but because of this. Wilde's voice dips deep as he begins to read, narrating the dark room the hero finds himself in on the old pirate ship, captive but not bound, with his captors just outside watching the doors. How the moonlight glints off his muscles. He pretends to be asleep, but is thinking of the strange light in his captor's eyes, how maddening the electric blue of them is, and as he lies there, naked in his captive bed, he strokes a hand down his own chest, thumbing over his own nipple, trying to pretend he is thinking of the love he left behind and not the man who is guarding his door and the way they dueled earlier, the fierce clash of their swords. 

Wilde snorts a little at this and looks up, and with eyes on him again, Zolf tries to slide his trousers down slowly, revealing the last of himself to Wilde like a tease, but he has to struggle with the way the trousers catch on his legs, and he ends up closing his eyes, his face going very red. _Not smooth_ , he tells himself, and he's trying to tamp down the embarrassment, but it's not working nearly as well as he'd hope. _Gods_ , this was a terrible idea.

Still, there's a strange heat to Wilde's eyes when he reopens his own; his gaze dips from Zolf's bare chest lower, and then flicks back up just a moment to the furious blush now heating his cheeks. Alright. Moment not ruined yet then. They just look at each other for a long moment, and Zolf makes a pointed gesture back to the book. He's not going to keep going until Wilde keeps reading; that's the game. 

“Right you are,” Wilde says with a little private smile. His voice dips lower, deep and smooth and practically purring the words as he describes the way the hero's hands dip lower to his own hips, the noise he tries to stifle so as not to alert his captor of what he's doing, but how some part of him _wants_ to be overheard. How, with his eyes closed, he doesn't see the door crack open, just a touch, but when he opens his eyes again, his hand around his own cock, the captor's electric blue eyes are staring down at him. A curl of heat pulses through Zolf, and he mirrors the words, twisting his own nipple between thumb and forefinger to make himself shudder, his hips pushing up into the air, and Wilde sucks in a quick, sharp breath. He's still sprawled out on the couch, but there's tension in every line of his body, and even in the low light, Zolf can see that he's starting to get hard. 

The hero in the book tries to pretend he does not want to beckon his captor forward, tries to hide himself while wishing his captor would toss the blankets away and ravish him, and Zolf wraps a hand around his own cock, half-hard, focusing on the way Wilde's voice rises and falls with the words. Heat pools in the pit of his stomach, and when he tightens his hand around the base of his cock he just barely grits his teeth to hold in a noise. It's easier, with his eyes closed; he needs to hear the words, not see Wilde, and Wilde's voice is so lovely. So rich, so full of mischief. He strokes a hand up the length of himself, twisting a little at the head, and this time, he can't hold back a small noise, and Wilde moans in return. There is a faint sound of Wilde shifting back and forth on the couch; trying not to touch himself, maybe, or just squirming at the sound. He'll take either one. 

“And then he--” Wilde takes a deep breath and tries to press on. “And then he was upon me. His hands, rough with the callouses of years of ships' work dragging down my hips, his cerulean eyes boring into mine as though they could see into my very soul. I wanted to give myself to him; I could deny it no longer, and as his body covered mine all I could think of was the _heat_ of him, burning me to my core.” 

Zolf fucks into his hand faster, drinking in the moments where Wilde has to pause to gather his shaky breaths enough to speak again, and when he opens his eyes again Wilde's whole face is flushed and he is desperately, painfully hard, one hand holding the book and the other clenching and unclenching in the fabric of his trousers. “You can—you can touch yourself,” he grits out, pinching the skin of his hip with one hand to let the pain lance through his body and sharpen the arousal. 

Wilde nods and keeps his eyes on Zolf as he reaches down and unfastens his trousers, putting the book down for just a moment to lift his hips and slide them down to mid-thigh. His cock is long and lovely, perfectly proportioned to him, and in the glint of the low light Zolf can see the way he has been leaking all over himself. The sight doesn't arouse him, but somehow the thought, playing it back to himself, does, and he tightens his grip on himself and nods before tipping his head back onto the pillow. There is a bottle of oil under his pillow, and he reaches for it blindly, fingers closing around the cork to loosen it before slicking his fingers. 

“Gods, _Zolf_ ,” Wilde says hoarsely as Zolf sets the bottle aside and reaches between his own legs to stroke a slick finger back and forth over his hole. 

“Going to keep reading?” Zolf asks, fingers of one hand stilling against himself, his other hand wrapped around his cock but not moving. Not just yet. 

Wilde grumbles something that sounds like it might be _I hate you_ , but he definitely doesn't mean it, and Zolf grins as he picks the book up with the shaking fingers of his other hand and starts to read again, the words breaking into soft, plaintive moans every so often as he works himself with one hand. The heat in Zolf builds as he presses one finger into himself, his legs spreading wider, listening to the way the words rise and fall as the hero finally gives in to his captor, how he wraps his legs around him and opens up to accept him inside, “a pain that was not pain at all.”

“ _Zolf_ ,” Wilde says, a high and broken thing, and it's the sound of his voice, all masks gone, that pushes Zolf over the edge. He squeezes his eyes shut and comes for a dizzyingly long moment, hand working slowly over his cock as he works himself through the aftershocks, the force of it so much that it makes his ears ring. When he opens his eyes again, it's to see Wilde, head tipped back, his mouth open in a soundless cry, his hand working furiously over himself and his hips pushing up into the movement, making the couch beneath him creak. 

“Go on,” Zolf says, and Wilde cries out and comes all over himself. 

They are both silent and panting for a long moment; Zolf watches him as he tries to pull himself back together, one hand still clenched tight around the book, the other still cupped around the base of his cock, and Wilde looks at him, finally, a small smile growing wider on his face as he notices the gaze. 

“Wine?” Wilde offers, nodding to the bottle on the floor, and Zolf laughs a little to himself and slides down off the bed to retrieve it. He takes a long swig, his throat bobbing as he swallows, and then reaches out to take the book back. This time, he's not hiding it from Wilde as he slides it back to its place under his pillow. 

“Any more stashed away?” Wilde asks slyly. He looks _immensely_ pleased with himself, and takes the bottle of wine back from Zolf when it's offered.

“A few,” Zolf says. “I'll save those for next time.”

“Next time,” Wilde agrees, and sprawls out lazily on the couch like a lounging cat, his hair slicked to his forehead with sweat and his trousers still down around his thighs. For the first time in a long while, his whole body is not coiled tight with stress, and maybe, just maybe, he'll be able to actually sleep.

Zolf decides to call it a win.


End file.
